Suitcases, Silence and a Sentence: The Unraveling of a Family
It began, as many tragedies do, with an ordinary click of a mouse.
Last year a family in New Zealand bought the contents of an abandoned storage locker at an online auction. What they expected were dusty boxes and forgotten furniture; what they found instead were two small bodies, wrapped in plastic and tucked away in suitcases. The discovery tore open a story that had been folded and hidden for years — a story of migration, grief, mental illness and the legal system’s struggle to make sense of immeasurable loss.
The discovery and the case
In 2022, those suitcases set off a police investigation that stretched across oceans. The remains were identified as two children who had been eight and six years old in 2018, the year after their father died from cancer. Authorities tracked down a former caregiver, a South Korean-born New Zealander named Hakyung Lee, who had left the country in 2018 and later returned to South Korea.
Lee was extradited to New Zealand in November 2022 to face charges. In September she was convicted after admitting responsibility for the children’s deaths — an admission complicated by her plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, and by a decision to represent herself in a court that would eventually hand down a life sentence.
“You knew your actions were morally wrong … perhaps you could not bear to have your children around you as a constant reminder of your previous happy life,” Judge Geoffrey Venning said from the bench, capturing the court’s struggle to weigh motive, culpability and suffering.
Timeline at a glance
- 2017–2018: The children’s father dies of cancer.
- 2018: The children die; their bodies are concealed in suitcases.
- 2018–2022: The suspect leaves New Zealand and moves to South Korea.
- 2022: Suitcases found by buyers of a storage locker; police launch a murder investigation.
- November 2022: The suspect is extradited to New Zealand.
- September 2024: Conviction and sentencing to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years.
In the courtroom
The legal choreography in this case was unusual and raw. Lee pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity and chose to act as her own counsel, a decision that added theater to an already grim proceeding. Her legal team argued that her mental illness should weigh heavily against the court imposing life imprisonment. Prosecutors countered with a stark assertion: there was no evidence she was suicidal at the time, and the methodical steps — medication overdose, wrapping, placing the children into suitcases — suggested a deliberateness that courts are loath to ignore.
Judge Venning declined to temper the sentence, ordering life behind bars — the most severe punishment available in New Zealand, which abolished capital punishment in 1989 — but he also signed off on compulsory treatment in a secure psychiatric facility, stipulating that Lee will return to prison once she is deemed mentally fit.
Lee must serve at least 17 years before she can seek parole. For many observers, that number is both a legal benchmark and a watershed of unanswered questions: what justice looks like after such a rupture, and what the state can do to prevent another such rupture from ever occurring.
Voices on the ground
The case didn’t unfold in isolation. In neighborhoods where the family once lived, there were quiet conversations and stunned disbelief.
“I ran into the mother at the dairy a few years ago,” said Rachel Moore, a neighbor who asked to be identified by her first name. “She always seemed thin and tired, but she had this light in her when the kids were around. You never think someone you wave to will end up in a courtroom like this.”
Detective Inspector Sarah Bennett, who oversaw the investigation, described the discovery as one of the most harrowing in recent memory: “Finding those children after so many years was a shock to the system. For investigators and for the family who bought the locker, it’s a trauma that reverberates.”
For mental health professionals, the case raises familiar — and troubling — questions about access to care. “When grief and isolation collide, they can produce terrible outcomes,” said Dr. Anil Kapoor, a forensic psychiatrist with experience in court-ordered treatment. “We know that mental illness is often invisibly present in family tragedies. But diagnosis and treatment can’t always catch up, especially when people withdraw or lack social supports.”
Context: migration, isolation and mental health
Lee’s story is not only a legal one; it is also a thread in a larger tapestry about migration, community networks and the safety nets available to those who fall through them.
New Zealand has a sizable immigrant population, and for many newcomers, the loss of kin, language barriers and the breakdown of extended-family supports can intensify feelings of isolation. Advocates point out that long waiting lists for specialist mental health care, stigma around psychiatric treatment, and economic pressures can prevent timely intervention.
“We’re not asking for easy answers,” said Mina Park, director of a Wellington-based immigrant welfare group. “But we are asking the public and policymakers to see how social isolation and grief can fester into crises. Better outreach, culturally appropriate services, and stronger community networks could make a difference.”
Storage lockers and the modern afterlife of things
The means by which this crime came to light — an online auction of a storage locker — is itself a small emblem of our era. Across the globe, storage auctions have unearthed hidden histories: from lost treasures to heartbreaking secrets. Online bidding platforms make it simple for people to acquire the detritus of other lives; sometimes, those detritus pieces carry stories we could never have anticipated.
“We thought we were getting a dresser and some boxes,” said the family who discovered the suitcases, via a statement released by their lawyer. “We didn’t expect to find children. It’s something you can’t unsee. We call for privacy as we try to heal.”
Wider implications
What does justice look like after such an act? For a criminal-justice system, the answer is a sentence: life imprisonment with mandated treatment in a secured psychiatric unit, a minimum of 17 years before parole consideration. For communities, the answer is murkier: it is grief, it is questions, it is a hunger for prevention.
As the case closes one chapter with a sentence, it opens another about how societies balance punishment with care, accountability with compassion. How do we protect children? How do we spot the warning signs of someone teetering toward a catastrophic act? And how do we provide avenues for people in deep distress to get help before situations spiral?
Looking outward, looking inward
These are not purely New Zealand questions; they are global ones. Around the world, nations wrestle with mental health services that are underfunded and overstretched, with families dispersed by migration, and with the quiet collapses that sometimes result.
You, the reader, hold a role here too: in the friend who checks in, in the neighbor who notices a decline, in the community organizer who pushes for accessible care. Small acts — a phone call, a referral to a support group, an insistence that public systems devote resources to prevention — can be the difference between intervention and tragedy.
In the end, the suitcases are a stark, painful symbol. They remind us that even the most ordinary corners of modern life — a self-storage unit, an online auction, a sealed piece of luggage — can conceal profound human stories. They also ask something of us: to look beyond headlines and courtrooms, toward the social bonds and services that might prevent future quiet catastrophes.
What, in your community, are the small supports that can be strengthened? Who is the neighbor you haven’t checked on lately? These questions may feel too late for the children whose lives were so abruptly ended, but they are urgent for the living.
